Friday, 21 August 2015

The Greek Food Adventure - Day 1

Destination Corfu

The Greek Food Adventure is dedicated to the memory of my Mum and her husband at the time Alex. In 1987 they took me to Corfu on an amazing holiday, I always wanted to return someday and was delighted to be finally returning again 28 years later to the same small town we stayed in back then, Kato Korakiana. This photo was taken by me at a Greek night in Benitses on the East coast of Corfu in 1987.

At Stansted airport we decided to eat breakfast at the Windmill (Wetherspoons) that had recently been rebuilt in the refurbished departure lounge, read the breakfast review here.

We boarded our Ryanair flight on time but a delay of 30 minutes followed once everyone was seated, Candy Crush Saga it is then!

The slight delay in taking off did at least allow me to pass level 37 of Candy Crush Saga so a small victory.

The rest of the flight was spent studying the menu and browsing through Outline Magazine.

Outline featured an article on The Street Cafe in Norwich, it seemed that despite the reviewer loving the experience he only scored it 7.5/10. It still gets a 9/10 from me!

I wanted something to eat on the flight but knew to avoid the Getaway breakfast I had experienced last month (review here). Instead I went for a chicken salad roll and can of Heineken costing €9, I really enjoyed both.

As the plane was coming in to land I started to wonder which island was Corfu, this one looked quite promising.

We were off the plane and outside in about ten minutes, the customs guys barely looked up at our passports as we passed them. The airport looked exactly the same as it had in 1987 and this bus bay hadn't changed at all either, the memories came flooding back.

We'd pre-booked return transfers from the airport with Sun Transfers, the reviews had been excellent and sure enough they were waiting to collect us in the arrivals lounge. We'd booked a vehicle to carry six passengers and enjoyed a big mini bus with about fourteen seats, plenty of space for the half an hour journey to Kato Korakiana.

The villa we'd booked for the week was in the small town of Kato Korakiana, we were greeted by our host Kiki on arrival. We booked the villa using the Air B'n'B website, with six of us staying here it cost about £140 each.

Our host Kiki was lovely, she spent time showing us where everything was in the villa.

Kiki had kindly left us some supplies including fresh tomatoes and homemade jams.

The fridge was well stocked with plenty of supplies too.

The grapes and plums had come from the garden and there were plenty more out there if we needed them.

There was even a bottle of wine and a selection of fruit juices in the fridge, Kiki you legend!

The homemade cherry liqueur caught my eye, I tried some right away, very tasty indeed.

It was getting late but we all fancied a beer and something to eat. Select Restaurant was close by and looked promising so we headed inside.

The menu had plenty of choices on it, this seemed like the perfect start to the Greek Food Adventure.

It was a hot evening so we sat outside, we were surprised at how quiet the restaurant was for a Saturday night.

We were joined by the restaurant cat, very friendly and the first of many that we would encounter during our time in Corfu.

Nothing beats the first holiday beer, especially when the glass arrives frozen.

I filled the Heineken glass with the local beer Mythos, a superb beer and just €3.50 for a large bottle, the first of many.

Bread arrived at the table served with Lurpak butter, we were all really hungry and this didn't last long at all.

This Greek salad was delicious, the local ingredients tasted so good and the feta cheese was amazing.

My wife chose fried aubergines in a light batter with a tomato and feta topping. I tried one and was really impressed, we'd clearly chosen a good restaurant.

The owner Gregory was clearly proud of his homemade Taramasalata, we hadn't ordered any but he sent some to the table on the house for us to try.

I spread some over the bread and immediately realised why Gregory was so proud of it, certainly the best I'd ever had the pleasure of eating!

I ordered the swordfish, an impressive sized serving arrived cooked beautifully. It'd been been marinated prior to cooking and tasted amazing.

A serving of hand cut chips arrived with the swordfish, delicious!

These sardines were nice but a bit too salty for my liking.

After the meal Kumquat liqueur arrived for everyone. This got us thinking about cocktails so we went in search of some.

Just down the road we spotted this restaurant serving cocktails.

We were told we would only be charged €5 per cocktail as the main cocktail lounge was now closed. It was just a case of deciding what one to have.

The cocktails here were fairly nice but certainly not the best, the staff were really friendly though and they seemed to be happy to keep the bar open as long as we kept drinking.

The owner was proud of this tipple he had created, these were on the house and easy on the taste buds.

It seemed rude not to try more cocktails!

More shots arrived, I forget what this one was but it was on the house again!

These stickers were above all the toilets I had visited so far, I discovered that due to the narrow sewer pipes in Corfu, toilet paper can block the pipes. There were bins beside each toilet where the used toilet paper must be put to avoid blockages.

We got back to the villa fairly late and spent a bit longer sitting here drinking that bottle of wine in the fridge and the cherry liqueur. A great first night and very impressive food, I couldn't wait to seeing everything again in daylight the next morning.